Cover Story
As economic growth languishes and worries about the specter of deflation mount, much-needed infrastructure development and new sources of project financing could provide a panacea to global growth.

It is essential for companies to work with banking partners they know they can trust. Global Finance’s annual ranking of World’s Safest Banks have been the recognized and trusted standard of financial counterparty safety for more than 20 years.

This year, we updated the name of the awards to reflect the extent to which digitization is transforming our lives in general and banking in particular. By renaming this as the Digital Bank Awards, we are making the competition more inclusive of current technology and more future-focused in anticipation of developments still to come.

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Cover Story

IDENTITY CRISIS By Udayan Gupta As stock exchanges worldwide try to figure out their role going forward in corporate equity and equity capital raising, companies are starting to question whether there is still value in a public listing. ...

Features

COMING OF AGE By Anit a Hawser Islamic finance is starting to spread within the countries of North Africa with high Muslim concentrations. Any discussion of Islamic finance usually includes Islamic financial hubs such as Malaysia or ...

DISTINGUISHING GLOBAL GROWTH By Kathryn Tully Global Finance’ s most recently instituted awards acknowledging the best Islamic finance institutions globally, by region and by country only began in 2008, but in that relatively short time, a number of ...

BANKS FOLLOW THE MIGRANT MONEY TRAIL By Michael Shari Banks in emerging markets are building a lucrative business on remittances sent home by workers in developed nations. Alberto Raúl Guerra Rodríguez has had his hands full for ...

BARRIERS TO ENTRY By Antonio Guerrero Though its economic growth may be stalling, Brazil is still an attractive destination for investors. But the recent imposition of tariffs on certain imports has sparked an international ruckus. For several ...

RISE OF THE “JAGUAR” By Antonio Guerrero Mexico’s new business-friendly president has promised to open up state-owned oil companies to private investment. If so, Mexico could overtake Brazil as the region’s largest economy within a decade. Photo ...

EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED By Paula Green Recent natural disasters in Japan and Thailand highlight the need for companies to insure against business interruption. Photo Credits: RUCHOS / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM About the only sure thing risk managers and their insurers ...

HIGH TECH MEETS THE LAW OF INERTIA By Paula Green Treasurers wanting to move to high-end forecasting solutions still face an uphill challenge. Even when a treasurer wants to move to a high-end system for forecasting cash, ...

THE STARS ALIGN By Rebecca Brace As treasurers seek to optimize liquidity and working capital, cash and trade solutions are increasingly in sync. Treasury and trade used to be two separate disciplines. But in recent years there ...

DOMINANT REGIONAL PLAYERS By Kathryn Tully Since 2002, Global Finance has honored the best trade finance banks by region and by country based on a number of criteria, including technological innovation, transaction volumes, global coverage, customer service and ...

By Thomas Clouse BANKS WINNERS BEST CITY COMMERCIAL Bank of Nanjing China's more than 140 city commercial banks are facing increasing competition from each other as well as their bigger national counterparts and smaller rural finance neighbors. Against this competitive ...

By Thomas Clouse CORPORATE WINNERS AUTOMOBILES Great Wall Motors Competition is fierce in China's automotive industry, and slowing sales growth this year has added even more pressure to the country's automotive producers. Great Wall has responded to that pressure with ...

AWARDS CEREMONY: LOCATION TOKYO, JAPAN Global Finance held its annual Best Banks awards ceremony in Tokyo in October. The event took place during the annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank. Financial leaders from around the world ...

Emerging Markets Roundup

NO-SHOW AT IMF By Thomas Clouse China’s once-a-decade leadership transition will begin on November 8 at the Communist Party’s 18th Congress. Chinese banks skipped the World Bank/IMF meetings in Tokyo last month amid a territorial dispute with Japan, ...

COMMODITIES BOOM SEES AFRICA OUTPACE GLOBAL GROWTH By Antonio Guerrero African economic growth is outpacing the global average for the first time, according to a World Bank report, with such sub-Saharan countries as Sierra Leone, Niger and Angola ...

NEW PLANT WILL CASH IN ON DEMAND FOR SILICON WAFERS By Antonio Guerrero The BNDES national development bank and BDMG development bank for the State of Minas Gerais joined forces with Brazilian billionaire Eike Batista and other investors ...

CONFIDENCE RISING By Aaron Chaze Economic policy reforms are having the desired effect: The confidence level of Indian businesses is on an upswing. A survey by research firm Dun & Bradstreet shows that Indian companies now expect greater ...

RECORD US LOAN BACKS SAUDI PETROCHEMICAL PROJECT By Gordon Platt The US Export-Import Bank approved a $5 billion loan to Sadara Chemical, a joint venture of Saudi Aramco and Dow Chemical, to finance US exports needed to build ...

SBERBANK STAKE SOLD By Kim Iskyan State savings bank Sberbank’s 7.6% stake sale went through in mid-September, raising $5.2 billion and leaving the central bank a 50% plus-one-share stake in the country’s largest bank. The sale had been ...

Global Salon

POPULIST REVOLT By Vanessa Drucker Global Finance held its monthly Salon in the magazine’s New York office with Luigi Zingales, professor of entrepreneurship and finance at the Booth School of Business of the University of Chicago and author ...

UNCERTAINTY REIGNS The foreign exchange market is going through a period of significant change on multiple fronts. New regulations introduced in the wake of the financial crisis will redefine users of foreign exchange services and divide the market into ...

THE RENMINBI GOES GLOBAL By Gordon Platt Pressure from BRIC countries for a new international reserve currency to replace the dollar is growing. China, the world’s leading trading nation, would like to reap some of the benefits ...

LONG-TERM DEPENDABILITY By Kathryn Tully The overall winning bank and many of the regional category winners for foreign exchange have remained consistently strong for over a decade. Deutsche Bank has been the magazine’s global winner for foreign ...

FX EXCELS WHILE OTHER ASSETS FALTER By Gordon Platt The FX markets are evolving: Trade and currency internationalization, and the shift toward exchanges, will further this process. Foreign exchange has proven itself as a separate asset class ...

PROFITING FROM THE BEAUTY PAGEANT By Laurence Neville Despite the eurozone’s debt woes, the euro has remained remarkably resilient thanks to a range of factors, including a more credible ECB under Mario Draghi and diversification away from the ...

Country Report

AGAINST ALL ODDS By Justin Keay Mid-20th-century tourists flocked to Lebanon, the Switzerland of the East. War and instability long ago changed that. Now, with the Syrian conflict spilling over its borders, the country faces yet another round ...

Milestones

MILESTONES: BULGARIA By Valentina Pasquali With the eurozone debt crisis dragging on and membership in the currency union becoming increasingly less appealing, the Bulgarian government recently froze its bid to join the eurozone. Bulgarian economy is outperforming its ...

MILESTONES: GLOBAL Laurence Neville The global M&A market is moribund: Activity is just a third of the level of five years ago. Skipper, Hogan Lovells: Economic uncertainty is the key barrier to investment Yet, companies are awash with ...

MILESTONES: UK By Anita Hawser The ongoing controversy surrounding Libor, the global benchmark interest rate used for pricing financial contracts, has sparked a wider debate about the merits of using alternative reference rates. The Bank of England ...

MILESTONES: IRAN By Michael Shari The collapse of Iran’s currency, the rial, has cut so deeply into the credibility of Iran’s government that it’s inching closer to regime change than it has been since a popular uprising deposed ...

MILESTONES: SLOVENIA By Valentina Pasquali With all eyes on the much larger Spain and Italy, Slovenia might actually turn out to be the next eurozone country in line for a bailout. Bets are on as to whether ...

Corporate Finance

CORPORATE FINANCING NEWS: CORPORATE DEBT By Gordon Platt Corporate debt issuance soared and yields on high-yield as well as investment-grade bonds fell to record lows in September after the European Central Bank (ECB) and the US Federal Reserve ...

CORPORATE FINANCING NEWS: GLOBAL EQUITY/DRS By Gordon Platt Sberbank, Russia’s largest bank, raised $5 billion in a secondary share sale in London and Moscow in September that had been delayed for more than a year because of unfavorable ...

CORPORATE FINANCING NEWS: MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS By Gordon Platt A proposed $45 billion merger of European aerospace group EADS with UK defense operator BAE Systems fell apart last month just ahead of a regulatory deadline to close the deal. ...

Newsmakers

NEWSMAKERS: BERMUDA By Gordon Platt Paula Cox, Bermuda’s premier and minister of finance, shared the stage with former US president Bill Clinton in New York in September at the C3 Summit, a conference designed to promote relations between business ...

NEWSMAKERS: UNITED STATES By Gordon Platt CEO Michael Corbat aims to restore Citi’s prestige—and boost its dividend—by operating with extreme efficiency and producing sustainable profits. Corbat’s selection to head Citi was a surprise to many How he ...

NEWSMAKERS: GEORGIA By Valentina Pasquali Over the past few years, investors’ love story with Georgia flourished under the presidency of Mikheil Saakashvili, who spearheaded a sweeping liberal economic agenda since coming to power a decade ago. Bidzina ...

NEWSMAKERS: TURKEY By Dan Keeler Turkey’s authorities are concerned that the economic boost provided by an upgrade to investment grade by Fitch Ratings could trigger some unwelcome side effects. Erdem Başçı says he can keep inflation in check ...

Back Page

Tertiary Degree Graduates Aged 25-34 (in millions) Tertiary Degrees By Percentage of OECD And G20 Total * OECD estimate based on the same average annual growth rate as that observed between 2000 and 2009 + Germany and ...

Additional Stories

A WORD FROM THE EDITOR We received the following letter from the Bank of Korea press office. We are not surprised that some of our features generate controversy. We affirm our right to express an editorial stance based on our ...